More bloodshed and death for the people of Gaza

Israeli officials say the operation was meant to show Hamas — the militant Islamist group in power here, which opposes peace with Israel — the cost of continuing to fire rockets, especially the longer range ones, and to try to create further popular dissatisfaction with Hamas. Arguments persist over how many of the dead were truly uninvolved civilians, with Palestinian officials saying half or more than half, and Israel saying far less than half.

But the residents here were horrified by the numbers of civilians they believed had died, and even officials here of Fatah — the more secular Palestinian party negotiating with Israel — think the popular reaction has served to strengthen Hamas by turning it into the victim, at least in the short term.

There is anxiety in Gaza about Hamas, which has moved swiftly to consolidate its power and whose armed policemen and military men are visible in the streets. They provide order and have ended security chaos and much crime, but they are also an intimidating force, smoothly breaking up a Fatah rally called for Wednesday by changing its venue, turning back buses of supporters trying to reach Gaza City and putting hundreds of men, armed with guns and wooden sticks, along the streets.

Fawzi Barhoum, the Hamas spokesman, said in an interview that people were free to express themselves, and that the dead died honorably. “The number of martyrs is the price of convincing world opinion about the justice of the Palestinian cause,” he said. “The celebration was in support of the martyrs and of resistance as a choice.”

He insisted that Hamas was in control of Gaza and coordinated rocket firing with other groups, but a moment later said that Hamas would not stop other groups from firing rockets and resisting Israel in their own fashion. But he also said that the number of rockets fired depended on Hamas’s calculation of the Palestinian interest at the time, and that Mr. Abbas’s negotiations with Israel were futile and a form of collaboration. “The Hamas project is liberation, and Hamas believes that Israel only understands the language of force.”

Mr. Barhoum, too, seemed to think that this incursion was a kind of advertisement for the future, and insisted that Israel would fail in any larger military operation, “which will just increase the popularity of Hamas.”